Engine Head Out: Word: The Day Dad Died

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The Day Dad Died

"Why won't he turn that buzzer off?" I set my feet against the nylon floor, wiped away the sleep with a yawn and a stretch and stumbled into his room. When I first saw him a feeling of disbelief swept my body and then sharply I knew the life had gone from the mass of flesh before me. Some might have said that he looked peaceful. I say he looked like an empty shell. I shut the window so the cold could no longer offend my senses before ceasing the still hammering buzzer pounding in my head. I called his name repeatedly in a vain attempt to wake him from his ever heavy slumber, but I knew that he wasn't going to wake up. Still, I had to try.
    I raced to my brother's room hoping that he had the answer. "Something is wrong with Dad," I understated with haste. My sibling uncharacteristically snapped from his dreams and ran to him. All too soon he sensed the emptiness and he too called his name.
    The ambulance blared its siren as a horn through dense fog. They took one look at his body and turned to us with sympathy. "It's been too long," muttered they one to another. I knew that they spoke truth, but still anger swelled. They wouldn't even try. Check his pulse, hold up a mirror, something! One look had said enough? One look.
    "The funeral is in four days."
    So, I stood before all who cared to see him off and quivered, "His trip was long and glorious. The gates of heaven flung open and he was graciously invited in. It was like one-thousand wishes, the wind blew ten-thousand kisses and they were all for him. All for him. Heaven gained a powerful soul that day, but the earth lost a great man. The flesh that was once his now belongs to the soil."
    You know, either I am repressing the sorrow that I should be feeling or it's true that I'm happy for him and probably a bit jealous, but it's damn hard not to be selfish when you lose someone that means so very much to you.
   "Dear Sir, on the day of your passing the clouds were few and fluffy. The sun shown brighter and more glorious in my eyes than I have ever remembered. And, if you listen closely a bird still sings for you. It was a good day to die and you were at peace with a world that could no longer contain you. I will love you forever and will soon return to your embrace."

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